Amid global crises, superyachts are selling more than ever. Here’s why.
In the world of high-end luxury, superyachts have the cachet and cachet alone to sell.
They are sleek, elegant sailing vessels that stand as symbols of wealth and taste, built to sail in the seas in an era when few people could.
Here, they are atypical of what’s normal in the luxury-cruise-liner world. They are not sleek and beautiful — they are usually ugly and ugly. They are not sleek and elegant — they are usually expensive and expensive.
Their design and construction are of a type that is very rare, according to people who have worked in the industry.
While high-end luxury boats tend to have names like the M.S. Yacht Club, the Oceanus and the Seaway, they are in fact nearly all privately built and very difficult to commission. These are boats built largely by the high-end boat maker of the moment, such as Piedmont Yachts, Yachts by Poma, Bavelli Yachts and many others, all of which are controlled by superyacht importer and financial services operator BH Group Holdings Ltd. Piedmont Yachts, the luxury yacht maker under U.S. ownership, is controlled by BH Holdings to this day.
“Yachts are made by small shops who assemble pieces without the benefit of design expertise, like the big boat companies do,” says Richard Ward, who writes about the high-end yacht industry at his blog Yacht Industry. “One of these small shops can start and end up doing the big projects that a more skilled shop might take two years to do.”
Ward’s point is that even if a superyacht manufacturer is capable of building their boat and paying the big bucks to do it, because they usually don’t have an office on a big vessel or even on shore, they’ll probably have to send the boat to the client in order to get the work done.
So even with big, sophisticated manufacturers and their teams of highly experienced staff, the superyacht industry is dominated by low-cost superyacht builders who can’t afford the high-end luxury yacht of today.
“Superyacht hulls are so unique that they are always expensive to build,” Ward says. “Superyachts are a byproduct of the